Between a Rock and a Fucking Tsunami
Season Ten, Episode Two Preceded by: Season Ten, Season Premiere: High Rollers Followed by: Season Ten, Episode Three: O Brother, What the Fuck Summary ::0030 Sunday, November 9th, 1443 to 0330 Thursday, November 13th, 1443 ::Sending to Ethan Dragonslayer: Owned crime lord's safe. Eleven headshotted a dargon, enjoy the bits. Anahita's got enemies, Leilah probably dreamed of Xenteroth. My head hurts like a m*therfuck. : It is early morning when the party finally makes it back to the JKIII with their purloined loot. Ming-ui is not up to helping, and as the party has no rogue they have to ditch the flying skiff, awesome though it is. Ashra mutters something about learning some rogue skills of her own one day so that This Will Not Happen Again. : Vishnu is waiting for them, chewing on his fingernails. He asks if they made a clean getaway, and Ashra answers that for once, the answer is yes. Well, Cicero and Eleven were seen, but Cicero is nondescript and Eleven is a machine. Vishnu says that's great, and now they can head for Nyasa City. ... Wait. Nyasa City? Ashra explains reluctantly about the Hand of Vecna and the Chalice of Cuthbert summoning them to Bisau; Vishnu barely manages to refrain from yelling where Fab Dick could overhear him. He explains that Bisau is where Vecna fled after he slew Cuthbert. Vishnu is furious, but agrees that if Vecna says go to Bisau, he intends to see what the hell is up there. Then he wants to go to Malvont. Ashra asks if they can please stay on the Southern Continent, trying not to have to go into her and Leilah's search for their mothers. They might be able to go to Nyasa City instead, as he'd previously planned, but he's too angry to talk to them any more. Well, at least their current journey is confirmed. : Leilah and Snugglesworth set to installing the supercharger in the JKIII. Eleven practices intimidating a corner. Ashra and Cicero take a look at the safe. It has ten letter dials and three number dials. Through various means they work out that the letter pattern is D_ _ _O_ _O_ _ and the number pattern is _ _ 6. If an incorrect combination is entered too many times, the safe will self-destruct. : Leilah offers as much information about Coriander as she can muster. He's a moneylender, which is against the rules of The Forbidden, and tends to provide discreet loans of large sums of money at predatory interest rates. He operates in Prospero, Celestalia, and Nyasa City, but can't touch Malvont. He's recently started financing adventuring companies. : Ashra's first idea is the Common word "discommode," meaning to inconvenience. Testing the letter "m", however, reveals that this can't be it. Cicero works out some different series of numbers with various things in common, then reflects on Coriander's nature as a gambler and takes out his Double Dragon Ante deck. He starts laying out cards, counting their various values. He comes up fairly quickly with the total value of all cards in the deck combined, 406. He then starts working out other combinations ending in 6 which relate to the game. : Ashra, meanwhile, comes up with several guesses including DEBTOFGODS, DEALONGODS, and DRAGONGODS. DRAGONGODS seems plausible given the nature of the god cards in Double Dragon, but a test reveals that the letter "r" is not in the set. The number 4 is confirmed, and 406 seems almost certain. Ashra cautiously tests until it's down to DEALOFGODS or DEBTOFGODS. There's no "a". As the first of their three guesses of the entire combination, the party dials in "DEBTOFGODS406." : The safe swings open. Inside the party finds Coriander's emergency kit: blue tar wolves milk, a double-barreled wounding +3 pistol which Eleven immediately begins to covet, a box with 10 astral diamonds, incense, and a symbol of Farlanghn, an artistically made short sword, rope, backpack, bedroll, scrolls of Hero's Feast and Haste ... and best of all, his little black book of names, account numbers, balances, and dates due. Leilah checks everything out and finds that nothing is trapped or marked with divination spells. : As an added bonus, the party can now install this lead-lined Futurium safe in the ship. They'll want to reset the password first; Ashra hands the number part off to Cicero, who chooses "150", his first big win. Ashra handles the numbers, mutters about how no one in Eon has proper password security (except Marcus Fairlan and maybe Grax), and picks "BTSIHTTRIH". When asks, she explains that it's the first letter of each word of a phrase: "Better to serve in heaven than to reign in hell." The only person likely to ever guess that is Grax himself, and if he's on the ship poking around, the company will have ''way bigger problems than their safe. '' : The party finishes up in Prospero with some last minute shopping. Ashra picks up cure wands for Cicero and some more diamond dust in case Leilah needs to be Restored again. Cicero buys himself scrolls of Restoration. Ashra hands Leilah a couple of Astral Diamonds to trick out the ship's ammo, and Leilah returns with an array of new fancy cannonballs. : Eleven, picking up new responsibilities as a logistics officer, explains the three different possible routes to Bisau. All will get them to Bisau in time. One goes absurdly high and is ruled out immediately. One is low enough no one will suffer Altitude Sickness, but will take them through Voltagassy, a major metropolitan area where they might well be searched by Inquisitors. The remaining route goes instead through Heaven's Pass, a dangerous area, and will reach 14,000 feet at times, well above Ashra's comfortable limit of 12,000 feet. However, it's the only viable option. Ashra says she'll only demand a luck reroll if she risks permanent brain damage from the oxygen deprivation. : The newly supercharged Jade Kracken III takes flight. They make amazingly good time for the first three days; the wind serves them, the weather is otherwise good, and Ashra is breathing all right despite the thin air. On the way, Leilah gets some answers to questions from her mother. She learns that Anahita is on the Southern Continent, not being imprisoned by divine or extraplanar powers, and that her existence but not her divinity is in danger. She has needed to be saved since before the Autumn Equinox. Leilah headdesks and mutters about how she should have called more often; Ashra sympathizes. : When the party approaches Heaven's Pass, Ashra gets a splitting headache and can't think very well. She is able to scope out Heaven's Pass as they fly over it, however. It has an 18 lb "Airship Crusher" howitzer cannon, about a half dozen skiffs in the river, and two airships docked including one large black one. : The party leaves the town and heads towards the canyon rapids, and the weather takes a turn for the worse. Visibility is only 107 feet, and the winds and rapids are treacherous. Eleven plots a suggested route which will take the party quickly through the canyon to safety on the other side. Ashra gives the command to Snuggles to start along Eleven's planned route. Leilah and Zaph have each prepared many casts of Make Whole to fix the ship when it takes damage from the air currents. : Ashra starts scanning the surroundings with her spyglass, and spots a black ship sliding out of sight back into the fog. Unless its crew has eyes as inhumanly keen as hers, they cannot have spotted the JKIII. She considers whether they should change course to try to avoid the other ship. It's not really practical to do so, so they continue towards it. Eleven looks at the clouds and shouts at them that she's coming for them. : She may be coming for the clouds, but something white and soft is now coming for her: with a great rumbling, snow pours off one of the mountains into the canyon. It thankfully misses the ship, where Ashra is telepathically cussing out Eleven. : There is a loud screech. Cicero wonders if he knows what it is, and Ashra explains that she knows from experience. That sound is against her religion. Three ice dragons, furious at the disturbance of their habitat, start winging towards the ship. Ashra screams the traditional religious greeting, "WHORES." : The black ship reappears and fires on the JKIII. Ashra scans the battlefield using her spyglass and sees that the largest of the three dragons is wearing a crown. The black ship is captained by six tieflings, giving orders as a collective. Ashra tells Leilah she thinks it's probably Scarlet Brotherhood. : Leilah acknowledges the possibility. She goes up to the deck of the JKIII and fires an Acid Fog at the tieflings, causing them to lose control of their ship and waver a bit for a few seconds. The strong winds carry the fog away soon, but she's bought them valuable time. : Zaph keeps fixing the ship as best she can. The ship keeps shooting forward, trying to escape both dragons and enemy ship. There's a flash of white ahead, but it's gone before Ashra can get a good look at it. : The dragons approach the ship. Cicero climbs above decks and fireballs them, but sinks a breath weapon and has to retreat below so that Ashra can heal him. Eleven stands his ground, pulling out the heavy pistol from Coriander's safe. : Two dragons land on the deck of the ship. Eleven looks over as one roars at her and sinks a bullet into its maw. The dragon explodes, scattering dragon bits all over the deck. Cicero pops back up, springs off the poop deck, and slashes the other dragon with a magical sword attack. He then starts trying to dodge as the dragon snaps at him. Eleven tries to chime in with her zanbatou, but misses completely. : The ship continues on, trying to escape. The black ship fires again. :Ashra sees a white ship appear from behind a mountain. It's equipped with ballistas, each ready to fire a hooked chain. The ship's name is the Hook, which seems rather silly until the other ship's name, the Bait, becomes clear. As they approach, Leilah calls in an airstrike on the Hook. The cannonball arcs and hits directly, knocking all but one of the crew off the Hook. : As they approach a mountain which they intend to slide by to the right, Ashra notices something very strange off to their left. There's a tidal wave, 14,000 feet high, approaching them. Inland. From no clear source. Leilah makes an offhand reference to how tidal waves ''mean'' something down here as Cicero and Eleven try to deal with dragon number two. The crowned dragon is wisely keeping its distance. Ashra comes up to the deck to help them deal with the dragon just in time to be greeted by its breath weapon; it doesn't pierce her SR, while Leilah dodges perfectly and Eleven and Cicero do the best they can to stay out of the blast. : Ashra notices how odd the wave is and realizes it's a religious thing. Leilah hears a voice in her head say, "So I see she sent her daughter..." It's not a friendly voice. She thinks over her studies and realizes this is the voice of Haverford, the god of this river, who has some sort of grudge against Anahita. He's proud, and would back down if actually physically injured. He might negotiate with her, but not with anyone else. The ship hides in the lee of the mountain. : The tidal wave turns a corner to bear down on the ship. Ashra sees the god himself riding the wave. She Douche Points the ship's turn and screams at the dragon that she will have its eyes for her god and that her ally the wave is coming. The intent is to turn the dragon against the god, hopefully destroying one and/or embarrassing the other. It's very frightening ... but not to the dragon, which is mind-controlled by the same god riding the wave. At the moment, it's also flying away terrified. : The god slams up against the ship. Leilah manages to shoot the ship straight up out of the way of the wave; the pressure strikes Ashra and hurts her, but everyone manages to stay on the ship. Ashra pulls out the Portable Star, tries to activate it, and fails. Leilah takes over. The star does exactly as it should: it floats up high in the air and begins glowing like a second sun. : Well, that's ... useless. Also, Leilah points out, it'll make a nice beacon for Inquisitors. Not that it'll matter, because they're all about to be smashed by a tidal wave. Ashra looks out towards freedom, and yells a set of directions to Leilah. It'll require use of the ship's Turbo and some crazy flying which will endanger the ship, but if done properly, it could save them from their otherwise certain doom. : Leilah takes the helm from Snugglesworth. She first shoots the ship up the side of the mountain, then curves along it, hooking the ship into an air current. From that air current she manages to whip the ship around to fly straight into another one, which sends them shooting out across the waters away from the river god. The ship came damn close to Mach 1 through the whole ordeal. Everyone cheers for Leilah, once they have their breath back. As they sail triumphantly away from the furious god, Eleven does a robot dance, Cicero does a happy dance, Ashra gives a small, sarcastic wave, and Leilah facepalms. : This weather, however, is not likely to let up any time soon. It is Thursday, 3:30 AM. Category: Episodes Category: Season Ten Episodes